Wedding Night and Wedding Morn
by Maisedoat
Summary: On board The Day Dream, and man and a woman reach out to each other.


"Wedding Night and Wedding Morn"

He carried her high against his heart, down below deck, out of the salt spray and the cold wind from the sea. She rested her head on his shoulder, smelling the faint lavender from his clean clothes and the soap he had shaved with.

"Bon nuit, petite Maman," Armand called softly as he turned for his own cabin. She did not reply, exhaustion had fallen upon her like a heavy blanket and she was content to rest, feeling his heart beating against her side as he strode, sure-footed against the restless movement of the ship.

His cabin stretched the breadth of the stern, huge windows looking out onto their wake and the coast of France receding beyond. A man's room, comfortable but unadorned, the hanging cot his great frame required slung from the overhead beams, an armchair bolted to the floor, bookcases, a desk.

Gently, her lowered her into the chair and dropped to kneel beside her, taking her hands in his, bending to kiss the palms. "I never thought this day would come," he whispered, his voice almost lost in the sound of the waves and the creaking of the ship. "I dreamt of you here, mon âme, I never thought to see it." His hands were trembling and felt hot against the cold of her own skin.

He shook himself and jumped up. "First we must see to your poor little feet. I'll go get hot water; you slip your stockings off." And he was gone.

She brought her hands up to her lips, feeling where he had kissed them; almost surprised she could feel no difference. Then she struggled to sit up and roll down the tattered remnants of her fine silk stockings. She wondered why he had not merely summoned a servant to fetch the water as he would normally have done, she knew he had a personal steward aboard, and a warm feeling blossomed as she realised he was giving her privacy for this small undressing, refusing to presume upon their new intimacy.

At last the pathetic little rags were off and discarded and indeed her feet did look greatly cut and bruised. A soft tap at the door and Percy was there, with a jug and basin, a clean white towel over his arm.

Despite her protests, he knelt at her feet and with infinite care tended to her wounds, washing and washing again, gently removing all traces of her hunted and haunted journey along the cliffs. His face was intent and she felt a strange pain over her heart as she watched his concentration, head bent, anxiously checking her skin for sand or stones or thorns, anything that might delay her healing. The man who kept two countries guessing, the man who had saved so many lives and restored so much happiness, kneeling at her feet. She put her hand on his head, feeling his hair, the curls still damp springing against her palm, and something warm surged deep inside her. She shivered.

"There, little woman, I think that's it." He set the bowl aside, lifted his head and smiled gaily. Then, his breath caught and she saw his eyes widen. "Oh my love," he murmured and, bending low, he took her tiny feet in his hand, pressing warm lips to the fine arches, a sudden, passionate, strangely unenglish gesture that set her heart racing.

She reached down and tugged frantically at his shirt and he came up and into her arms, his mouth searching for hers. Yes, oh yes, at last and he was kissing her as she remembered, kisses that drew all life, all feeling into her lips, kisses that maddened and kisses that whet her appetite for kisses and for him.

She turned her head, eager for more and deeper and heard him groan as he tore himself away, placing a finger over her lips when she would have protested. "Shhh, my love, not tonight, not like this, you're exhausted. We have waited so long, we can wait another night." She kissed his finger and he dropped back to sit on his heels, his fist clenched at his sides. He took a deep, shuddering breath and she blushed, realising how much she was wanted and how much this restraint was costing him.

"Hungry, sweetheart?" She shook her head, unwilling to speak for fear her voice might shake, unsure what she would have said. "Then if you'll let me play lady's maid, you can rest until we reach Dover."

She put out her arms and he lifted her over to the cot, swaying on its cords against the rise and fall of the waves. He loosed the laces of her gown; his touch seemingly impersonal but, as he turned to lay the unwanted garment over a chair, she saw that his hands were trembling.

Wearing only her shift, her bruised feet swamped in a pair of his silk stockings, she snuggled into sheets warmed by a hot brick wrapped in flannel. The linen smelt of rose petals and was gentle against her poor, battered skin; the cot moved with the ship, rocking her as she had not been rocked since infancy. "Where will you sleep?" she asked drowsily.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I have some letters to write before we drop anchor, I'll be right here, sweetheart."

"Good!" she said and fell asleep to the sight of his smile as he took pleasure in her voice and the satisfaction it had held.

She woke once in the night, wakened by some noisy manoeuvre up on deck and saw him seated at his desk, fair head bent in the lamp light, and was comforted to her soul.

The next time she awoke the cabin was filled with the glorious sunshine of a fine autumn morning. She stretched, flinching as some muscles protested yesterday's unaccustomed activities but feeling much better than she had any right to, perhaps it was the relief from the crushing anxiety of the last few terrible days or perhaps it was simple happiness, but, despite her aches and pains, she could have sung.

A tap at the door and, when she gave permission, a comfortable, middle-aged woman came in and dropped a curtsey. "Mrs Bradley, milady, bosun's wife, which Sir Percy thought you might like some help with your bath."

"Thank you, Mrs Bradley, I would." Suddenly she was eager to rise and face the day. "Do you know where my husband is?"

Mrs Bradley went over to a locker and produced a gorgeous silk dressing gown, which she settled over Marguerite's shoulders. "Sir Percy is seeing the foreign gentlemen off, milady. Now, would you like some breakfast while I fill your bath?"

Indeed milady would, and she tucked into a hearty breakfast as the bosun's wife scurried backward and forward, first with a wooden bathtub and then with countless buckets of hot water supplied by unseen hands at the cabin door, a door which the good woman took infinite pains to open no further than was absolutely necessary.

The bath was heaven itself, the hot water easing away the dust and dirt, and with it the last lingering remnants of the fears which had held her for so long. She was safe and she was loved, loved as she had not hoped to be, without need of apologies or explanations, loved by a man who had sought her forgiveness and acknowledged his share in their estrangement. As Mrs Bradley's capable hands washed her hair, rinsing and rinsing until all trace of soap was gone, she felt hope unfurl in her heart, like a great banner against the sky and she was laughing as she dried herself, seated on a padded locker beneath one of the great windows, her hair about her shoulders.

Which was where he found her on his return, his arms full of silk and lace for her adorning, sitting in the sunshine, the scarlet and gold of his dressing gown muted by the glorious cascade of her hair, and the blush on her cheek. She was trembling and so was he, but there was no doubt here, no fear, only joy and love too long denied.

Mutely she handed him the hairbrush and turned away and he sat behind her, running the brush through the copper-gilt glory of her hair, breathing in her perfume, letting the strands fill his hands and curl about his fingers.

"Thou art so beautiful," he said hoarsely. "So precious to me." And she shivered and arched her neck, pressing her head into his hands, the sound of his voice in her native tongue sending small, strange ripples of delight running through her. "Art certain thou wouldst …"

She twisted in his arms and her "Yes, oh yes" was lost in his mouth as he swung her up and into his arms. The dressing gown parted but there was no room for shyness, no room for anything but the touch of his hands and the feel of his skin against her own.

The cot swayed beneath them and it was new and strange and beautiful beyond measure. Old wives tales, the giggling whispers of her school days, the brutally commercial transactions she had seen and feared as a young woman had done nothing to prepare her for this radiant delight, this restless yearning for something she had never known and never wanted to know until now.

And almost best of all, he felt it too. He trembled and cried out beneath her hands, beneath the tentative caresses of her lips, amazement and delight spilling from his mouth into hers, his body into hers, rising around them until the moment when he claimed his bride and she surged to meet him, claiming him in her turn and there was no pain, as the old women taught, no pain, but a shared triumphant joy.

Afterwards, they lay entwined beneath sheets, heads on the same pillow, astonished into whispers when there was no need. "Thou art not hurt, beloved?"

She smiled and shook her head and kissed him, running gentle hands over his great shoulders, mindful of his injuries still. "No, my husband. I do not think I have ever been less hurt in my life." They kissed, slow and sweet, and then, in pensive tones she said, "And figure to thyself, I had always believed I was too cold for love." His shout of laughter was heard on deck while, down below, she lay on his broad chest and attempted to stifle further noise with her hands, the attempt doomed to failure by his insistence on kissing them.

And when later he drew the blankets up around her shoulders, they slept like that, her head on his chest, rising and falling in the rhythm of his breath, held high against his heart.

The End


End file.
